Founder of iconic South Side bar Mario’s

In Pittsburgh in 1982, the wolf was at the door. Local unemployment was upward of 17% and the steel industry that built this city was on a ventilator, particularly in the South Side, a neighborhood that owed its very existence to blast furnaces along the Monongahela River.

So buying a building there and opening a tavern seemed like a foolhardy endeavor for Bobby Pessolano, but he did it anyway. He called the place at 1514 E. Carson St. Mario’s, because he wanted it to sound Italian. Thirty-seven years later, his legacy is thriving, even if the South Side — and Pittsburgh in general — couldn’t be more different.

Mr. Pessolano died Tuesday from complications related to Alzheimer’s. He was 68.

He grew up in Oakmont and graduated from West Virginia University, but his true education came from working in restaurants in Virginia Beach and at a Long John Silver’s in Irwin, where he learned the basics of the service industry.

When the opportunity came available in 1982, he “bought the only building he could afford,” his wife, Katie Pessolano, said. The old Victorian building had previously housed a men’s store, but Mr. Pessolano and his ex-wife, Mona, transformed it into what’s become one of the most enduringly popular and easily recognizable drinking establishments in Pittsburgh in the last half-century, once famed for its full 1-yard glasses of beer.

Mr. Pessolano, also developed Blue Lou’s next to Mario’s and bygone music venue Nick’s Fat City — where Bruce Springsteen played with Joe Grushecky in 1996 — across the street.

Louis Pessolano came up through the family business and worked with and for his father from childhood through college but left to be a teacher for 11 years.

“Once on a field trip, a kid and his dad were sitting in front of me on the bus and we struck up a conversation, and eventually it came up about Mario’s. He said, ‘I met my wife there!’ I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard stories like that. It’s a crazy amount of people.”

Mr. Pessolano sold Mario’s and Blue Lou’s in 2007, but Louis rejoined the partnership that runs the establishments in 2011. (They’ve since opened locations in Shadyside and Oakland.)

Starbucks actually offered him more money for the building, but he loved the locals who came in and he wanted it to stay a neighborhood bar. He saw in them what he wanted Mario’s to be.

Acclaimed local artist Johno Prascak worked at Mario’s South Side as a bartender from 1986 to 2006.

“He put South Side back on the map,” Mr. Prascak said. “There were the mom-andpop places, and they were closing up. There were dive bars. It wasn’t desolate, but there was a new heartbeat there with Mario’s, and it steamrolled after that. It put a new vibe in those old buildings. There was nothing else like that.

“It was crazy busy, the toughest job I ever loved. I used to say it was like being a social chemist. You met a cross section of humanity — a wonderful cross section. I met so many good people that came through those doors, and it all started with Bob.”

Mr. Prascak said Mr. Pessolano encouraged him with his art and hung some of his pieces behind the bar. Mr. Prascak would go on to produce works that hang in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, and the set of “Will & Grace.” He also proposed to his wife, Maria, there in 1989.

“It was more than tending bar. It was a huge chapter in my life. Bob was encouraging to me. [Mario’s] is my roots and it’s a part of Pittsburgh history.”

After selling his business, Mr. Pessolano and his wife retired to California, where he became a father again and explored his passion for wine by growing grapes on a 10-acre vineyard in San Miguel, Calif., before returning to Pittsburgh last year.

Mr. Pessolano is survived by his wife, Katherine Gray Pessolano; daughter Nicole Kopel and sons Lorenzo and Louis Pessolano; sisters Nancy Pessolano and Joan Stewart; and grandchildren Avery, Calvin and Savannah.

Mr. Pessolano’s memorial service was Saturday. Contributions may be made to UPMC Alzheimer’s Research, 200 Lothrop St., Pittsburgh, PA 15213.